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I'm fake, the guy who asked for help with his Russian friends. This is by far the best article on what happened, and also the best description of MetaFilter I'v

I'm fake, the guy who asked for help with his Russian friends. This is by far the best article on what happened, and also the best description of MetaFilter I've seen yet. It was good to have an opportunity to reveal a few additional details, like how the guy wanted their passports in exchange for a "room", and other behind-the-scenes info I didn't want to share with the whole internet while it was happening. The incident helped catalyze and strengthen anti-trafficking efforts within the State Department. Pollomacho, the State Dept. rep who contacted me, ended up receiving a meritorious service award for his work. I posted other updates over the years if anyone is interested. http://metatalk.metafilter.com/23482/Hazlitts-love-letter-to-MetaFilter#1176162 http://metatalk.metafilter.com/23482/Hazlitts-love-letter-to...

themodelplumber 12y ago
It was awesome to read about that as it happened. Amazing stories like that really heightened my frustration at learning that MeFi was being punished by Google's ranking algorithms because it was too old-looking. The new look is great but on Google's end there are so many search results where there should be an AskMeFi link at the very top but you still get a bunch of ad-bloated, low-quality sites coming up.
jedanbik 12y ago
Thanks for sharing this! This incident led me to join the site in the first place.
drivingmenuts 12y ago
I am an inactive member of (what could be categorized as Metafilter's tiny little brother - Monkeyfilter). MoFi is now, sadly, essentially dead but not gone. The interesting thing about MoFi is that there are people there that I know more about from an online relationship than I know about most of the people I know in real life (that's an awkward sentence to parse, I know and I'm sorry about that). I once flew to LA for the weekend and hung out with a couple of them and am still in contact with them on Facebook. Their lives matter in ways that people whom I see on a daily basis don't. Still mulling that over several years later. We had an IRC channel for a while. We tried starting our own radio station for a while. The meetups are much rarer, but occasionally still happen. Just thought you might be interested.

themodelplumber 12y ago

It was awesome to read about that as it happened. Amazing stories like that really heightened my frustration at learning that MeFi was being punished by Google's ranking algorithms because it was too old-looking. The new look is great but on Google's end there are so many search results where there should be an AskMeFi link at the very top but you still get a bunch of ad-bloated, low-quality sites coming up.

jedanbik 12y ago

Thanks for sharing this! This incident led me to join the site in the first place.

drivingmenuts 12y ago

I am an inactive member of (what could be categorized as Metafilter's tiny little brother - Monkeyfilter). MoFi is now, sadly, essentially dead but not gone. The interesting thing about MoFi is that there are people there that I know more about from an online relationship than I know about most of the people I know in real life (that's an awkward sentence to parse, I know and I'm sorry about that). I once flew to LA for the weekend and hung out with a couple of them and am still in contact with them on Facebook. Their lives matter in ways that people whom I see on a daily basis don't. Still mulling that over several years later. We had an IRC channel for a while. We tried starting our own radio station for a while. The meetups are much rarer, but occasionally still happen. Just thought you might be interested.